This invention relates to fiber optic cabling for optical data multiplexing, and methods to align the fiber optic carriers to the laser sources.
Data centers use thousands of optical fibers to interconnect the servers to one another. Ideally the technicians who maintain this web of interconnections could unplug one patch cable and plug in a new patch cable or a patch cable that provides a different multiplexing path much in the same way that a video cable is plugged into a television. Because the patch cable is optical and not electrical, the alignment of the myriad fibers is critical to data integrity. Also, dirt and particles can attenuate the optical path and affect data integrity. Ideally a technician could reach around to the back of the rack, disconnect the old patch cable and connect the new without being able to see the connectors.
Currently, connectors for fiber optic cabling can adequately (<1 dB insertion loss) provide passive alignment for up to 16 fibers. Beyond that, the probability that one of the fibers is misaligned or that there is a blocking particle in the beam path becomes prohibitively high. Also, these connectors use a method called butt-coupling of output fiber to input fiber, which requires that the polished ends of the two fibers be pressed together with high force to minimize the air gap, and thus the reflection at the connection. This further limits the number of fibers that can be bundled into a single connector.
Accordingly, a device is needed that can connect a plurality of optical data sources such as VCSEL lasers to a plurality of output fiber optic cables with low insertion loss and high efficiency.